I've been watching this project for awhile, but it looks like it's getting closer. Basically it's mounting a laser inside a large aircraft so it can shoot down missiles as they're launched. Apparently they've done various tests and are scheduled for a live missile firing this August.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/26/high ... ng-the-te/

Looks promising but without some data etc its really hard to say if its actually any good.

Awesome. Reality is looking ever more like some sci-fi RTS game...the missile defence towers in Supreme Commander come to mind, picking incoming rockets out of the air and turning them on the attacker with laser trackers.

The airborne laser did a test-fire yesterday evening and successfully destroyed a test-fired, liquid fueld missile. Woot! Story below, including some infrared images.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/12/boei ... ith-laser/

from a comment about this on slashdot

Mm the applications of this could be almost limitless. We'd need a more readily harnessable powerful energy source to actually use them on a larger scale though, I would imagine.

The airborne laser is chemical based. Basically they have big vats of bad chemicals they mix together to provide the needed power.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_laser

So your power source is on the plane in chemical form. No need to generate power elsewhere. Other laser types are progressing in power as well, though none can match the sheer power of a chemical laser yet. The ABL one is 1 megawatt, which is pretty freakin' powerful.

Free electron lasers are pretty cool, but not anywhere near powerful enough yet. On the other hand, they're a lot less dangerous (no chemicals) and smaller (no vats of chemicals), so as the technology matures, that's probably where we'll be heading.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_electron_laser

Cool. I think I read something by Michio Kaku about lasers and how they are powered - the chemical thing rang a bell.

The railgun tech is actually more interesting and well more primal .

I think railguns are freakin' cool, but ultimately lasers are a more 'advanced' technology in my opinion. Photonic energy vs kinetic energy. Whatever, I'd like to have either one. If I weren't so leery of electricity, I'd be tempted to build a railgun in my back yard.

The cool thing is that you actually can build a railgun (or its cousin, a coilgun) in your backyard, but it won't be cheap.